Scrapbook
by MTStarCosmic
Summary: A collection of various scenes, AUs, oneshots, or mini-stories in the Kirby-verse(s). Content, genre, and characters to vary from chapter to chapter. (Now with an FFN Conquest announcement!)
1. AU1: The Prince and His Puffballs

( **Chapter 1: Experimental Gameverse AU #1)**

* * *

 _Well, this is just the best birthday present EVER._

The prince of Dream Land made a face as he stared down into the basket again, wondering if what he was seeing was really there.

It was.

 _…_ _Kidding. This is the WORST birthday present ever._

It was his thirteenth birthday, and not only were his parents unable to celebrate with him (since they were, y'know, _dead_ ), he'd just received a burden in the mail instead of a present. He scowled at the contents of the basket as his Waddle Dees inspected them. One of the smaller Dees toddled over to him, handing him a note. Dedede glanced down at his servant.

"What is it?" he asked, trying not to sound like he was upset.

The Dee pointed at the paper, remaining quiet. Dedede turned and stared back down at the paper, the other Dees directing their attention toward him. The prince had never been a very accurate, or very quick reader, but with some corrections from the Dees, he managed to decipher what was written on the note.

 _Great King Dedede of Dream Land,_

 _In my last moments alive, I have a favor to ask of you: please protect these children. They are important to my husband, myself, and considering their heritage, potentially the galaxy. Both their parents have powers; unusual ones. If you don't want them, Great King…I understand. In that case, all I ask of you is that you give them to someone who will take care of them. But if I had kept them myself…they likely would have died out in space, with nobody to take care of them and no way to live. At the time you're reading this, I'm probably dead, or close to it. I thought that risking your Majesty's mercy was a better option for them. I'm sorry to rush this note, but I won't be alive much longer. Before I forget, their names are 'Kirby' and 'Mikaru'; last name 'Ponyo'. Though I suppose last names won't matter if they're part of another family, huh._

 _Thank you for considering my pleas, Great King. Thank you._

 _-Kiriki "Cherry" Ponyo, Time Manipulator_

Dedede frowned, glancing back toward the two puffballs in the covered basket. One of the Dees had closed the basket lid, likely to keep the children in the dark if they were sleeping. The prince was torn on what to do. It was his birthday today; he should be celebrating now! Not…looking after little babies. Were they babies? Or were they alien kids who didn't understand what life was like outside their basket?

 _Hey,_ _ **aliens**_ _…That might not be such a bad birthday present after all! As long as we still have cake and other presents, of course. Maybe they'll feel better if they watch some of my alien movies with me._

"My liege, um—y-you might wanna be careful with them," the youngest Dee squeaked, seeing him take a step toward the basket. "They're the children of some time traveler, or at least, close to it! They could be dangerous, or have crazy powers. No way would you want them loose in just _anyone's_ home!"

"We should keep them under surveillance, my prince," another Dee agreed. "No matter who we send them to; as long as they're children, they're powerful assets to anyone who has their hands on them. If the author if this letter was important, there could be ships full of aliens looking for these children, at the most extreme end of things. To put it simply, my liege, we have no clue what sort of kids we're dealing with. We're lucky we even know their names."

"But my liege, they might be a good sign!"

Dedede, along with the other Waddle Dees, turned to a middle-aged Dee in the center of the crowd. Though they were a little intimidated at being the center of attention at the moment, the servant continued.

"I mean, think about their names! They're close to 'hope' and 'blessing' in our language—er, our Waddle Dees' native language. The seal on the Nightmare Wizard and Necrodeus is supposed to break during your kingship. Maybe these two children will help you save us from them, my prince! You should do your best to find them a good home, just in case. And maybe assign them an extra battle mentor when they get older. Even if they don't end up being as spectacular as their heritage looks, every king's still gotta have some wandering heroes, right?"

Dedede's frown wavered for a split second as he tried to take in what the Dee had said. His parents hadn't told him much about threats to them kingdom before they died, but 'Nightmare Wizard' and 'Necrodeus' didn't sound like anything good. And the Dees expected him to be responsible for them and beat them.

 _But it's not my fault their seal will break!_

Exactly…That's why they were expecting those little puffballs—those _blessings_ , as they called them—to step in and do it for him.

 _But…then, those stupid babies will be more powerful than me…The Dees might like them better…_

The prince moved a few steps closer to the covered basket, his Dees moving out of the way as they saw him coming closer. He pushed back the basket lid, peering inside at the two now-orphaned children.

 _They don't_ _ **look**_ _like aliens…_

Both of them were still sleeping, which made it easy to inspect them. Now that he had some light to shine in the basket, the two children looked incredibly similar to Waddle Dees, but with larger feet—not a group of absurd monsters, or vaguely-humanoid creatures. The prince reached a bare hand toward them, choosing one of the children at random to touch. Upon making contact with its skin, he almost pulled away. The prince made a face as he stroked the puffball again, trying to believe what he'd felt.

"They…They don't have any fur," he told the Dees, confused. "And they aren't slimy like some aliens. They look just like you guys, and they don't look like aliens, so why don't they have any fur?"

At this, he felt his servants crowding around him again, trying to peek at the two 'Waddle Dee' children. Dedede had to physically shoo them back to prevent them from toppling the basket over. "Hey, don't be rough with it! I just wanted to know!"

"Shhhhhh," one of the mother Dees reminded him, still apprehensive. "My liege, try not to wake them up. We don't know what they're capable of. It's best to just leave them sleeping for now."

"My liege, was there any indication in the basket as to their names?" another Dee interrupted. "We know what they're called, but if they're too young or newborns, I kinda doubt they'll remember which of them is named which."

At hearing these two Dees voice their opinions, the rest of them started speaking up themselves.

"Did they have any blankets in there? My liege, what sort of environment do you think they would like?"

"Are we really keeping them, my liege? They seem like regular children, but what if they're monsters?"

"My liege, we _are_ making sure they go to a responsible home, aren't we?"

"Maybe we should keep them ourselves, just in confinement. It'd make things a whole lot easier until we knew what we were dealing with."

"What? How could you say that, Ben? They're children; they don't have any control over where they were dumped off!"

"I'm not saying we have to be mean to them! I'm just saying we could keep them here, in a few little rooms, just until they were old enough so that both us and them knew what they can do."

"My liege, why don't you keep them? Maybe just long enough until we find a suitable family for them, or until they've grown enough to choose one themselves…"

"Letting kids pick their own families? That's nuts; kids are gullible. They wouldn't do a good job."

"They may grow quickly, however." The Dee who'd spoken turned from its comrades to its prince. "My liege, we don't know much about these children's species, or what they need to live. We don't know how _long_ they'll live or at what age they'll reach adulthood. But I'm sure our prince will be able to make a just decision on what to do with them, and we will be there for you, my liege."

Dedede wasn't sure how to feel about this. All the Dees' eyes were upon him, waiting for him to give them the word on what to do about this. He didn't like it, but he could feel himself starting to crack under the pressure.

"I'll…I'll take them to my room, and make a decision later," the prince muttered hastily. "Uh, Waddle Dees, check on me for lunch. Bye."

And with that, the little penguin scurried away from the Waddle Dees and up the steps, basket in hand.

* * *

C/N: Hey guys! Uh...I have other stuff I should be doing; I know. But the point of this story (hintdescriptionhint) is for me to scrap around with stuff. Test headcanons, see what kind of stuff you guys are interested in reading (as I have tons of story ideas, but not a lot of time to work on them ALL), and play around with techniques/scenes/characterization I've not written before, like battle scenes or different characterizations for the main characters, just as an example. So uh, yeah! I mainly created this to interact with my viewers and see what people think of things, so please give me a little feedback each chapter (if you have the time) telling me what you're interested/uninterested in, or in the case of those test-run chapters, whether I need to improve. For my own sake, I'm trying to keep each entry between 500-1000 words so that it's not pressure to update, but like in this chapter, I may run over.

So, see you in the next chapter!

Random Trivia Time (especially for people who claim that Meta Knight's their favorite character): In which media source (ex: games, anime, etc.) did Kirby call Meta Knight 'Brother!'? Good luck finding it if you decide to look it up; its title/scene name is literally 'Meta Knight'.  
…this one's kinda hard unless you've gone through every single Kirby media source you can find, and I found this on a very obscure place (as it had to be translated), so if anyone DOES answer this correctly…hm…(Question is open until I find another good trivia question to ask in this story. I wanna make them kinda difficult to see who's a fan of Kirby, and who's completely obsessive over the series.)


	2. AU2: That's KING Director Dedede to You!

**Scrap Two: Like It was Just a Story**

 **Note:** Two scenes for this one! (just 'cause, uh…it's been a while since my last update…)

* * *

 **Directing a TV Show**

"Annnnnd cut! Perfect, Hiki—erm, Kirby; you did well!"

The pink puffball sighed in relief, shaking hands with his Waddle Dee co-worker—or should he say, co-actor? He'd been cast as the hero of an old friend's latest production, which meant new friends, new food, and new fun for him. How could he turn down the offer? Taylor and Dedede had been so thrilled to see him again!

"Ha, I know this scene that's up next." The director smirked, hoisting himself off his chair behind the cameras. "Get yourself ready, Kirby; this is my favorite part of the episode."

Dedede, as a director/producer rising to infamy, believed that anything his crew could do, he should be able to do just as well, if not better. This led to him meddling with the stage and camera crews, frequently leaning over the writers' shoulders, and even taking rolls in his own productions at times. At first, he'd come off as overcontrolling and demanding, but as he and his coworkers became used to each other, and as his projects became of higher quality, he'd garnered quite a bit of respect from his peers in higher places.

After enough projects got off the ground, Dedede had revealed a new project called 'Kirby: Dream Land Heroes!', which he'd began in secrecy with a handful of his childhood friends, taking place on his home planet, Popstar. It would be a huge project with multiple short-story arcs, focusing on a young alien boy named Kirby and his three companions—the strong, jolly king, a famous wanderer who became the king's assistant, and another alien refugee with a bad case of perfectionism. Throughout the series, Kirby would juggle his normal life with saving his planet, all while trying to settle into life in his new home.

Much to everyone's surprise, Dedede himself had asked to play the king, who was originally somewhat hostile to Kirby for stealing his attention. For the other three main characters, the director had called upon three of his childhood friends—two alien stepsiblings who shared a spaceship, and his assistant director, Taylor.

Obviously, Taylor's role fell into place quite naturally, but there had been a few…disputes over which of the stepsiblings got to play Kirby, and who got to play 'Meta Knight', the other refugee who played more of a side role in the start. It had gotten quite nasty, but in the end Hikiro, the younger, pinker sibling, won the right to play Kirby.

Of course, he mainly won because Dedede had taken the duo aside and explained what he wanted out of both of the roles, which sounded suspiciously similar to the two aliens' actual personalities. Regardless of this, both stepsiblings were still quite touchy about the issue and occasionally found it appropriate to insult the other about how much better their role was. As a matter of fact, 'Meta Knight' was glaring at the pink puffball as he sipped a chocolate shake, watching the performance. 'Bandana Dee'—Taylor's new nickname—was sitting next to him, likely telling him something about how he'd get more of a role as the show progressed.

The giant penguin slung an equally-large hammer onto his shoulder, smirking at the pink puffball on the stage's 'arena'. "Get ready, Kirby…Taylor, you ready?"

The Dee scrambled into position on the sidelines, leaving Meta Knight to sit by himself and spectate. Dedede was sure that the other puff wouldn't hesitate to point out any flaws that Taylor missed, but he didn't really care. It made his job easier, in all honesty.

"Ready, Sir!"

"Well then, get the cameras off standby and point 'em this way!" The director twirled his mallet. "I ain't got all day to smash pinky's face in, after all!"

'Kirby' grinned, taking a fighting stance.

"Poyo!"

Dedede blinked, hoping the cameras weren't rolling already. "Huh? Wha'did you say?"

The pink puffball stuck his tongue out at the penguin. "I said 'chicken' in Bronto-Burt, dummy! You're just too scared to face your punishment and give the food back!"

Offstage, Taylor waved to them, signaling that they'd just turned the cameras on. The insults would have to wait a few moments.

Dedede took a heavy step toward the little puffball, glaring down at him angrily.

"So, you decided to finally show yourself, huh?"

* * *

 **Scene #41**

"Great, now we're invading my house. Where's my help? Where's Kirby? Where's Meta?" the director bellowed. "And who stole my special megaphone?! They're gonna be fired when I catch them!"

A sapphire puffball held up a megaphone, typing away at his computer.

"Yeah, thanks." Dedede swiped the object from the puff's paw, walking back to his backyard to ready the next actors for their new location. "Yeah, I gotta do everything, and meanwhile perfect-boy Meta Knight's over there polishing off his halo, not doing any work in case his mommy comes," the director grumbled, glancing at the puff. The alien puffball met his gaze without flinching.

"Why would I ever need to _polish_ the halo if I've done nothing wrong to dirty it?" Meta Knight smirked, shrugging. (The Waddle Dees swooned at how attractive even _shrugging_ made him look.) "And you act as if I, the only child, shouldn't want to make my mother happy. Is it bad to seek your parents' approval, _your Majesty?"_

"No, but you're just a kiss-up," the 'king' retorted. "And you _know_ it."

Off in the distance, among the group of female actors, Susie Maxwell disagreed.

"I like Meta Knight," Susie giggled. "Made better by the fact that he has all the actual skills and smarts to back up his act."

Over in the corner, the other female Waddle Dee crowds were murmuring much of the same thing. So were the males, but without the romantic implications of wanting to drag the puff home and keep him in their closet. Or basement. Or bedroom. That guy was _competition_ if he decided that he wanted a date…but for now, since he was cool, the male Dees decided that they'd let him keep his act up without interfering. Until he started abusing it.

"Come on, Susie." A human girl named Adeleine crossed her arms, frowning. She was a rather new addition to the crew, and had only come to drop off her paperwork and check out her coworkers. "You aren't hitting on him, are you? I don't know about Mr. Dedede's plans for the story, but in this real world, I don't think a normal biped and a shorter ball-creature would work out too well."

"You like him too," Chuchu quipped, eager to tease. The teasing probably had to do with the fact that Kirb—erm, Hikiro—had turned down her offer of courtship. The octopus had not been pleased, and was determined to make him jealous by any means possible so that he'd come running back to her. …though, that didn't mean she had to be _impolite_ to him…

Adeleine's blush was barely visible, but it was there regardless. "I barely know anyone; I'll flirt when I know everyone."

"Better start now; at least half the set workers are female, and they're Waddle Dees," Susie quipped, always the obvious voice of reason. "They'll have a better shot at the Super Puffball Brothers than anyone else."

Susie's roll didn't come up until much later, but there were to be a few hints of her backstory before anyone realized she was important. So far, Susie's story was that of an innocent, wide-eyed little girl whose father—Max Haltmann—was an avid computer researcher with a degree in biomedical engineering. While showing his only child his latest project, Susie was teleported to a transdimensional rift and was presumed dead. Upon hearing this, Max's wife divorced him, leaving him to his science with no family left. Meanwhile, Susie was rescued by a guardian dragon and brought back to her planet—only to find that her father, in absence of those he cared about, had taken extreme means to try and revive his daughter, and no longer remembered her due to severe brain damage from his own experiments.

As the story progressed, the Haltmann family and their company would place business and profit over science and morals, leading both family members to dirty their hands as they tried to save each other—only for Max to die from the very creation he was trying to save his daughter with. After these events occurred, Susie would flee from the main cast to a fate that Dedede had not yet revealed to anyone, and Meta Knight would retrieve the lost data and experiments that survived from the company, one of which was a sentient robot. Any other information on this was off-limits to everyone except Susie, who Dedede forced to swear to secrecy.

"Hey, Susie! Can we borrow you for a few seconds?" Dedede called.

The magenta-haired girl swept over to her actual boss, nodding to the man who played Max, a humanoid creature known only as Mr. Rover—quite similar to how nobody knew 'Meta Knight's real name, either. He was such a jolly guy that he almost _was_ another father to her. 'Max' laughed in his deep voice, straightening his tie with one hand as he offered her the other.

"Well, Susie; seems our 'king' has some more fun scenes planned out for us! I do wish I knew more about computers…" The purple humanoid frowned, fiddling with his headset. "I know I'll have to operate these things sometime, but I don't have a clue what they're meant for! It's not good, when you think about the character I'm playing!"

"Well, Mr. Rover, I'm sure you'll do fine!~" Susie chirped, pulling out a tablet. "Just follow the script for now; I'm sure that blue kid—Meta, I think it was—can help you out later, okay? I know you've got another production to be at, so let's make this quick, okay?"

The duo stepped out onto Dedede's porch, preparing for their scene. By popular vote, Dedede had agreed to use his house as the Haltmann family's so that he didn't have to pay for the crew to use another location. He had quite a luxurious mansion quite fitting of the Haltmann's in-universe wealth, and Susie found it very charming and appealing.

…but then, she caught a glimpse of a little blue puffball on his computer in the corner.

 _Hmmmm…no; I think he's more appealing than a traditional, Japanese-style type of guy like Dedede…_

* * *

C/N: Pretty sure everyone in the Kirby fandom's aware at this point that 'pollo' is 'chicken' in Spanish, but since I never made a joke with it, obligatory 'poyo' joke. Anyways, wow; look at that update gap. I'd like to say, congrats to everyone on attempting the trivia question; quite a few people got it right and two people got really specific. Soulless Alpha was the most descriptive, and WOW, were you fast on it! True Kirby fan! Vulaan Kulaas took second on this one; congrats you two.

…although seriously, out of everyone who answered that, how many of you accidentally clicked on the review page before opening the story, and accidentally spoiled yourselves? (I'm guilty of such things myself, so I know of this!)

Anyway, next question because I'm curious: **Where can you access the translated manga on the web?** (Careful Soulless Alpha; everyone's watching you now ;P) My source isn't complete, and I wanted to see if anyone else had a full list before I sent everyone off. I'll give the results next chapter!

 **Also** : I had one other thing to ask. Recently, I've wanted to add a bit more depth to my characterizations of the main four, particularly based off of details from canon. However, before I went and threw these sorts of things in, I wanted an opinion off them. Y'know, stuff like 'would this even have any impact on the story?' or 'does anybody even recognize that this is from canon?' or 'do people _dislike_ this detail from canon and would prefer me to ignore it?'

…well, that last one's a joke, but the other two are things I'd like to know. 'cause, y'know, if nobody knows something's based off canon, and it's different from the norm, it could fall into accusations of OOC real quick, and I'd rather avoid that if possible. Plus, I had a few baseless backstories about things like the quartet's parents, their species; that stuff. Would you guys mind if I had longer C/N's to ask this (like this one -facepalm-), or should I set up a forum or something instead? The only reason I ask is because using forums kinda kills anonymous reader response, unless you don't mind just leaving a review here.

…Well that got long quick, so I'd like to say _, thanks for reviewing, everyone!_ I really love hearing from you guys! ^-^ I'll see you in the next chapter!


	3. Scrap: Before Dedede's Reign

**Scrap #1: Pre-Kirbyverse (1)**

* * *

 _Long, long ago, before many—if not all—of Dream Land's citizens were born, a young couple left their home planet, looking for a new adventure to find a new home. Their homeland was a pleasant country, but the couple was certain they could make a greater name for themselves elsewhere, if only they searched for the right place to settle down. The right place to have a child. The right place to spend their lives, at least for a hundred or two years._

 _Along their travels, they encountered a strange alien by the name of Hiko—a puffball creature exploring the galaxy by himself. With a bit of care and food, Hiko was persuaded to join the couple on their expedition, and was provided a hammer and armor to match. Though, it was soon discovered that Hiko had trouble using the hammer, and extra training was necessary before he could wield it as effectively as he could his other weapons._

 _While the universe was not unkind to them, the trio quickly discovered that finding the place of their dreams was not going to be as easy as they thought. With some smooth talking to mechanics, they were able to keep their ship moving from star to star, but for years, they wandered in search of a home._

 _At last, they settled on a destination—Popstar. It seemed like a safe place; it was a haven from darkness, had a Fountain of Dreams, and had several cities spread across its mostly-natural landscape. It seemed like a safe balance of life, and with Hiko's earnest approval, they set off, determined that no matter how the planet turned out, it would be the end of their decade-long journey. The couple decided they would have a child, and prepared for him to be born within the first year of them living there._

 _On their journey to Popstar, the couple realized that their traveling companion had disappeared. While they initially thought they may have left him behind somewhere, a search of the ship revealed the puffball curled up in a crate, afflicted by an illness from another species—one that his body might not be able to fight off. With a child on the way and their friend down for the count, the duo hurried to Dream Land, hoping to cure him before it was too late. Unfortunately, his time alone left the puff's body severely depleted of resources, and neither of the couple could persuade him to eat. Hiko spent most of his travel time asleep._

 _Upon landing their ship, the woman brought Hiko to a fountain, dipping a cup in for him to have some water. The puff's will had been almost entirely broken at this point, so he accepted without much of a fight before going back to sleep. While the couple were worried for him, they left him to sleep in the sleeves of their clothes, carrying him as they arranged for their new home. The duo went to sleep with heavy hearts, expecting that their friend wouldn't survive the night, much less survive to see the birth of their first child._

 _The next day brought them a surprise in the form of a puffball sleeping on their stomachs, with a lower temperature and a livelier demeanor. The couple were greatly confused at his unexpected recovery, and asked the Waddle Dee villagers why the puff could have been healed so suddenly. The Dees informed them that the fountain was rumored to hold water from the Fountain of Dreams, though nobody in the area had seen its mythical hiding place in their lives. The couple resolved to search for the Fountain to continue healing their friend, and the Dees, ready to support their cause, rallied behind them._

 _Years passed, and no Fountain was found. Hiko was continually afflicted by his illness, but still survived despite the odds. He lived to see the birth of their first child, and he lived to see the couple become the rulers of the little country. The land had recently been plagued by an evil warlord, known only as 'Nightmare Wizard', and the Dees had elected the couple as the rulers of their tiny section of Dream Land, hoping that the duo could influence others to find the Fountain of Dreams. After all, they were already searching for it, and the legends stated that there was a fantastic weapon in the fountain that could protect them from the approaching darkness._

 _The prince's fifth birthday came and went without attack from Nightmare. However, despite the peace, not all of the little kingdom was well and at ease…_

* * *

"Hiko, it will be okay," the queen, murmured, tears running down her cheeks as she stroked the puffball in her husband's arms. "We promised, you'll be all right…"

"Your Majesties…" The puff stared up at the duo, unable to do much more than lift his paw. "…Don't…promise. I'll…I will miss you…a lot. You were…always kind to me…even if I was…a Pikonyan. I love you—so much."

Both penguins grasped his tiny paws, unwilling to come to grips with the reality of what was happening.

"There's a Fountain here somewhere, Hiko," the king assured the puff. "We just have to find it. You can't give up hope yet. You've made it so far; just hang on a little longer…"

The puffball smiled sadly at them, his eyes glowing an unfamiliar color. "I love you all…his Majesty, her Majesty, Dedede…I love…"

The puff yawned, closing his eyes as he nestled into the king's soft, blue feathers. With nothing else they could do for him tonight, the couple brought their companion back to his room, hoping to see him in better condition in the morning.

The next day, they received word that a Dee in the country next to them had successfully located the Fountain of Dreams. They also received word that Hiko had passed away in the night.

With heavy hearts, the king and queen decided that the best they could do for their friend was to bury him in the forest surrounding the fountain they'd spent so long searching for. The funeral was arranged almost immediately, and the prince was left with a few cappies and Poppy Bros while the Dees and the older penguins attended the event.

"But why can't I go say goodbye to Hiko?" the little penguin whined. "If I'll never see him again, you should let me say goodbye to him! Doesn't he care about me?"

"Hiko's…already asleep, Dedede," his mother explained, trying to hold back her tears as she gave her son a hug. "He can't really hear anyone say goodbye; we're just making sure he goes away properly. He already told me to say goodbye to you, and that he loves you."

"Well…I guess…but he's sick. Will he be okay, mommy?"

The king came over to his child and rested a hand on his shoulder. "He'll be fine, Dedede. Hiko has always been okay."

The funeral was that night. And the king and queen fervently hoped that their old companion was as happy as they'd wanted him to be.

* * *

C/N: I was trying so hard to keep the italics as just a storybook-type narration, but I lost the battle with the need to include details, so it's sort of 'meh' right now. "To be rewritten one day", perhaps?

Anyway, nothing serious here; just scraping the rust off my skills. Am I back up to par? I can't tell; writing feels so foreign to me now...

By the way, Soulless Alpha is a mind reader (or a really adept Kirby fan, or both) and got the **manga** from the exact same place I did, which is ( www. meta-knight . com ) under Scanlation. I'm assuming it only has the mangas with Meta Knight in them, but hey, it's a lot, right Soulless Alpha?

Anyway, this is my headcanon of how Dedede's parents came to Popstar, and how exactly things were set up for Dedede's kingship. There's a plot hole or two in here somewhere but for just a scrap, I think it's sufficient. Of course, those of you who've read some of my other stories like _Family Reunion_ and _Four Days of Dedede's Christmas_ (or _Strangers in a Strange Land_ by I'mWishingforaStarRod) have a _pretty_ good idea of what happens after this.

As you all have suggested, I went ahead and wrote out some of my test headcanons for the Kirby crew. However, just the trivial details about Kirby, Dedede, and Meta Knight consumed the length of the story above, and I didn't even get to touch stuff about the general Kirbyverse in that. Nova, I talk for so long. -.- Anyway, since I haven't written seriously in almost four months, I'll probably make a little scrap/AU for each character (or paste the notes to the bottom of scraps), just so you're not overloaded with words. I don't know what I'll do with discussing general canon; drop tidbits, probably. (By the way, got **Kirby Clash Deluxe**! And the Susie armor, though I think I like Beam Mage better as you can freeze time with 3 or 4 charged hits. It helps that I have all the Kirby series amiibos and the Smash Kirby, heheh...In general, I think I'm only missing 35 amiibos out of all of them, actually...)

 **Headcanon Round #1: Dedede (Space-Saving Edition)**

- _There_ are other members of Dedede's kind in the galaxy…just not on Popstar.  
- _Dedede's_ parents traveled to Popstar and originally ruled a very small part of Dream Land. (As you saw in this scrap.) Dedede is the 'self-proclaimed' king of Dream Land because he expanded his empire without waging war—he just…well…marched in and proclaimed himself king, as the title implies. Who'd bother rebelling; he's not that much of a bother before the games start.  
- _In Robobot_ , it's stated that Dedede has a fear of a 'certain insect' (likely from Triple Deluxe). Problem is, is that spiders, or bees? We never got any specifications; just bold print. How about you guys give me some guesses?  
- _After_ 'Revenge of the King', Dedede held no ill will toward Kirby at all, but he accepts being called 'friend' by the pink puff only after the events of 'Return' and 'Triple Deluxe'.  
- _Dedede_ has sort of a 'younger sibling' complex, despite being the oldest out of the quartet. He tries to copy what people like about his companions, but since their strengths aren't the same as his strengths, he gets frustrated easily. Around 'Return' (or potentially before if we're taking SSBB into play), he does learn to focus more on his own strengths, like his physical prowess, size, and potential to power himself up from magical weapons, even if he cannot use their magic _directly_. We see him power  
- _Despite_ being on good terms after KSSU, Dedede sometimes likes being the 'bad kid' solely to prove that he's not _exactly_ like his parents. Because honestly speaking, what kid likes being compared to their parents, especially when they aren't an adult/the same age? (And honestly, how many people do you know who fit into the broad spectrum of this reasoning?)  
- _Dedede_ loves trying new food and will eat pretty much anything; he's the complete opposite of a picky eater. Similar to Kirby, but the complete opposite of Meta Knight, who's an extremely finicky eater.  
- _Honestly_ , does anyone remember that Dedede is, in Robobot's flavor text, 'one of the strongest life forms on Popstar', and was the one who chucked Meta Knight off the Halberd in SSBB's Subspace Emissary? Stop underrating the guy; he's not in the series for nothing.

 **Review Replies:**

As per usual, a huge thank you to everyone who reviewed! It means so much to me to sit down after being hammered with engineering and physics and speed bump problems all day to see something on Kirby and/or my stories. Seriously, thanks _so_ much. You guys are awesome.

 _CallieSizemore601_ : I know; that's what I like so much about them! You really have a lot to build on and fill in in the Kirbyverse!  
 _SoullessAlpha_ : Aw no! Well, it happens. You oughta log in sometime; I replied to your review with a PM. XD  
 _CrystalMemoria_ : Wow, thank you! And I never thought to check Rainbow Resort; I'll have to go digging over there sometime...  
 _Johanthen_ : I might in the future, but that depends on my time. I start a lot of ideas and experiments, but I rarely finish any of them solely because there's so many of them. So I can't make any promises, but I've entertained the idea before!  
 _Serene Fire_ : Aww, thank you! (And thanks for your other reviews too! I'll reply to the one on Family Reunion over there :D)  
Guest: I'm glad you like things so far! Yeah, the length...could be more desirable, but I have a chance or two in the future to break out some bigger scraps. And hopefully I'll get to show off more characterization, too!


	4. Scrap 2: Meta's Backstory

**Scrap #2: Meta's Backstory**

* * *

"I don't get it, Meta Knight. If you're so good at fighting, why don't you ever _do_ anything with it? You could be a bounty hunter, or a wandering hero, or something! You'd get rich; you wouldn't need a day job! What do you even do for your tech-nerd job, anyway?"

Meta Knight absentmindedly pressed a few buttons on his keyboard, toying with his computer program while he thought about his answer. Unfortunately, he hit 'Enter' three times in a row while testing a dialogue box, which caused his computer to open an endless loop of respawning dialogue boxes faster than they could actually be read. The knight's expression betrayed only a hint of surprise, which implied that this had happened several times before. Not that Dedede would know that, since he couldn't see the puff's face.

"I fight only because I have the power to do so, where some others do not. It would be a waste not to use it at all, but it's not what I wanted to do with my life. Personally, I prefer to live in a perfectly regulated environment, where I can modify my surroundings to my taste and interact with new scenarios without even having to leave my room." The puffball glanced briefly at the king. "My technical skills allow me to live in a perfect world, without having to endure anything I dislike, or…anything that could hurt me. Why would I choose a life of danger, violence, and uncertainty when I could trade all of that for mental suffering, instead? To me, this is a much safer, calmer alternative. Much more enjoyable."

Dedede blinked, trying to think of what the puff could be saying. "So…you don't want to fight? But why use your wish on Nova for _fighting_ bragging rights, then? That's stupid."

"Just because it's not my top priority doesn't mean I could care less about it," Meta Knight answered curtly, glaring for a split second. "I mean to say that I fight because I have the ability to, instead of picking it because I thought it was interesting. Although that certainly played a role in that decision; swordsmanship was the only remotely physical class I had in school."

"School?" The king had never thought of it, but yes, Meta Knight couldn't have learned what he knew without someone to teach him. "Where'd you go to school? Not on your home planet, right? If uh—I-If you still call it your home planet."

Meta Knight was quiet for a moment. Then, he jumped out of his desk chair and walked silently to a small shelf in the corner. What he brought back to the king was nothing more than a single letter made of metal…but to the citizens of Popstar (and many other planets), that letter was a symbol of great respect—and more recently, a symbol of great fear. Dedede himself went quiet, unable to do more but gape.

 _But it makes sense, doesn't it? Nova, they're so similar…He's one of_ _ **them**_ _. I wondered why he didn't want to attack them, and why he asked to keep their stuff, but…How could someone nice like Meta ever fit in with them?_

"Meta, y-you aren't—Are you—Wh-Wh-What…" the king stuttered, trying to organize his thoughts and say one thing at a time. It wasn't really his strength, however… "Meta, you're one of _them?!_ Seriously? But you're so _nice!_ How—How—"

"He really cared before most of us died."

Silence hung in the air.

"The Galaxy Union offered us tons of grant money to research ancient technology and artifacts, and though he refused to activate the more dangerous ones, magic tech is hard to resist when you have a wish you want granted," the puff murmured, unable to make eye contact. "His wife died from an incurable disease, but he never let that drag him down…in public. I greatly respected him. He was always able to focus on what mattered, make tough decisions quickly, and…everything. He didn't have many flaws."

Meta Knight frowned, playing with his paws. "He took me under his wing when I was younger, and taught me everything I know. His school was expensive, but he told me that I had great potential, so he only charged my caretakers a tenth of the tuition. He even provided meals to me, and my classmates as well. There weren't many of us due to the rigor of the material, so we all had our own rooms, furniture, computers…It…was wonderful. A paradise, even. It was a perfect world…"

"So…" Dedede tapped his fingers together. "Why'd you leave?"

"He forced us to. One downside to working with ancient technology is that you're never certain of the quality or mechanics of the materials you're dealing with, so when you work your calculations and create your theories…Well, our honors project blew up from inaccurate guesses. It killed several of us, and everyone else—myself included—had to be hospitalized. Even then, if it wasn't for one of the robots I'd been working on, I would have died."

The sapphire puff stroked his arm, and though it would make sense that he'd been severely injured…Now that Dedede thought about it, Meta Knight had no scars on his body, anywhere. How was that possible? Certainly, his species couldn't have _that_ good healing power, but…what other explanation could there be?

 _Extra surgery or magic, maybe? But wait—he didn't have any scars when he came back from—_

"My team captain…Aaron…died, next to me…" the puff whispered, voice shaking ever-so-slightly. "Even though he programmed some of the medical functions for the robot, it chose to rescue me instead. I don't know why. Aaron was better than me in every aspect except magic; his life should have been worth more than mine. But I didn't know he died for the longest time…I just woke up in the hospital, and I got a letter stating that my bills would be paid since it wasn't my fault, and that everyone was dismissed from the college; apologies. I knew who it was from…and I knew how much it must have cost to pay all of my classmates' medical expenses, as well. I mainly suffered from burns and surface wounds; nothing severe, but others had to have serious surgery."

The puff twirled the metal piece in his hands, sliding it into a circular cutout of metal. The parts fit together perfectly. Satisfied with the result, Meta Knight returned the pieces to his desk drawer, pulling out an old envelope and slowly opening it.

"I wanted to tell him it wasn't his fault, and that he wasn't a horrible person because of a single accident out of his entire career…but I never made contact with him again. He gave me food, knowledge, friends, and care…and though I could have saved him by sending a simple email, I let him send away everyone he cared about; let him drive himself insane to pay our hospital bills…and then killed him. What sort of person does that make me…?"

Dedede had no response. How _did_ you respond to something like that?

"Meta…You're…You're not a bad person; you had to do that…How were you supposed to know about what he was doing? Nobody else noticed or cared, either!"

"Does that matter?" The puffball pushed his mask onto the top of his head, rubbing the area above his eyes. From Dedede's past experience with the knight, that was usually a sign that he had a headache or felt sick. "Is my ignorance justified, simply because nobody else cared?"

"No; that's not the point Meta," Dedede argued, taking a step closer to the blue puffball. Meta Knight lowered his paws to his sides as the king stroked the puff's forehead. "I…uh…um…Why would you ever think of that? His life isn't your problem; you have your own life to take care of."

Despite being confronted with a logical point, the knight still seemed doubtful. Though his headache slowed his will to continue arguing.

"I suppose that's valid, your Majesty…but still, I think it will take more than that to convince me…"

"Convince you? To do what?"

Meta Knight unhooked his mask and held it in front of himself, the features and design of the mask looking all too familiar to the front of his childhood school projects. To anyone else it was a simple piece of equipment, but to the sapphire puffball, it was a symbol of honor…and a daily reminder of a perfect world, now shattered beyond even a tiny bit of repair.

"Convince me to forgive myself."

* * *

C/N: I've been out of college for a month now, and I have done little to no actual work on anything. I have to apologize for that; it's just, I've been having a lot of self-doubt recently so my confidence points are currently at...negative 508, out of 20, when it comes to writing. I have absolutely no clue how out of practice I am in writing right now, and that scares me. Is my writing noticeably different, or am I imagining things?

Anyway, on the actual work, I'm sure everyone's guessed where Meta Knight got all his technical knowledge, but if you didn't, I will feel so proud of myself. This was part of a piece I'm working on to explore various details about the quartet's personality that I was testing out, based off of small prompts with 200-500 word sections. The detail prompt for this one was 'school' (as I see Meta as more of the thinker/strategist in the quartet), but as you can see, it's...1400 words long. There's a lot more I could elaborate on here, but in the meantime, do you think I should include it in the prompt fic (maybe abridging its length?), or expand it and publish it separately? I hate to publish Meta Knight and Dedede interacting closely without background (at least, before I publish a certain upcoming project... :D), but I figure if I did that, I could slop something into the beginning of the fic. Hmmm...a flashback from Return, or just some background about how difficult it is to convince Meta to trust someone? Eh, depending on your vote, I'll come up with something.

...I feel like I should include some headcanons on Meta's personality/background/skills here, but you know what? Being mysterious and keeping to himself is the main appeal of his character. I have plans for a pretty big project after Family Reunion, so unless you guys really want me to, I'll wait until then to explore his character. One thing I will give away though: I'm using the Four-Temperament Ensemble for the quartet. If you read my profile, you might've seen the link to a website that gives a description of each role...

Hey, **speaking of Family Reunion** , there were a few things I was going to rewrite in it, and I figured...since I had to make edits anyway, should I modify things so that Meta's family there is also his family in my usual character backstories? He _will_ have biological parents regardless of the choice (to avoid stereotypical Meta Knight backstories), but since I know some of you keep up on FR...take a vote. Is FR background good enough to reuse if I need it in other works?

As always, thanks for your wonderful reviews! I always enjoy reading them and they make my day.


	5. CONTEST Notes and Scrap 3

**C/N:** Destiny, Mety, 1Thunderfire...if you're reading this, I swear I'll reply to your PMs as soon as I'm done exploding from the release of Splatoon 2. I did read them.

 **Contest info's at the bottom! I need a title for this fic too; I'm almost done with it, and I have no idea what to call it. If anyone's up to it, I'm also looking to see if someone could read over my fics for ease of reading; not like a beta job, but just someone to tell me if it reads smoothly. I'm NOT looking for a beta; I'm just looking for a regular person who points out things that they don't understand from just reading the story. Things that the average viewer is thinking, but would rather just abandon the story over.**

 **Anyway.**

 **Scrap: Post-Revenge of Meta Knight, Pre-Revenge of the King. Despite the king's obliviousness, Meta Knight has decided to tell him that he tried to usurp his throne. I will confess...there's a _lot_ of context missing here, but that should be enough to get you going.**

* * *

"…Though I didn't cause any damage or harm any civilians, I feel that I should extend my apologies to you for acting against you when it was the people of your country causing the problems. However, I should give you a fair warning—Had I been another country or an alien conqueror, you wouldn't have been receiving this sympathy spiel."

Meta Knight coughed, shivering under his cape. A pair of wings made holding the garment around him quite awkward though, and Dedede was only waiting for a proper break before he asked where the heck those _wings_ had come from. Did they just sprout out of the puff's back? He hadn't had wings when he'd taken his piece of the Star Rod…so, what had happened in between?

Besides getting beaten up by Kirby. Meta Knight probably thought that the king was smirking because he was thinking of some sort of punishment to give him or basking in his power as king. In reality, it was a smile caused by Dedede's happiness that even Meta Knight wasn't good enough to beat Kirby. The sapphire puff looked half-drowned, torn up, and one of his wings was hanging at an awkward angle. The cape covered most of his injuries, but the bent-or-broken wing made his condition fairly obvious. Surely that was an indicator of how much better their fight could have gone.

"I…I only came here because I, unlike the majority of your citizens, realize that you are not really a bad person, and therefore deserve none of the venom-laced comments they could have thrown at you. I'm not sure if they share my morals…but I believe it's not right to blame someone simply because there's no one at fault. I don't know what Kirby's told you about this whole affair, but…the only reason I had to ever attack you personally was for the sole fact that you rule a country whose citizens are mostly hypocritical idiots, and thus hold the only seat of power of said citizens." His injured wing twitched, causing him to flinch. "I know I had no reason to inform you of any of this, your Majesty, but I didn't want you to believe that I held any ill will against you. Not like the cappies and the poppies do."

Dedede waited a few seconds, to see if Meta Knight had finished talking. He'd talked for a straight fifteen minutes explaining his case, so the king wasn't sure if he was really through with everything he had to say. When the sapphire puffball continued to motionlessly stare at him, the penguin decided that he was probably done speaking.

"Uh…wow. That was a lot to take in." The king scratched his side. "So uh, anyway, where'd those wings come from? You grow 'em or something? You didn't have 'em the last time I saw you."

Dedede could have sworn the puff gasped, but whatever noise he made was too difficult for him to hear correctly. "You're…You're right, your Majesty. Our species does experience metamorphosis, actually. Though, this wasn't supposed to happen to me for another few decades, at least, so I'm unsure whether they'll still be functional after Kirby—put me through a slightly-metaphorical blender…"

"So you can fly?" Dedede repeated, not fully understanding what the puff had just said. In that case, it was probably for the better that the mask hid Meta Knight's reaction to his question.

"Hopefully."

The king frowned. "Huh."

 _Some answer. Vague enough for you?_

"And you don't have to call me 'your Majesty', you know. It's 'great king' in Dream Land; it's always been." He straightened up on his throne, staring a little closer at the puffball. "You aren't from around here, are you? Or have you just been living in the back woods too long?"

The causal tone of the conversation seemed to deeply confuse the knight.

"Though, hold on there…"

The king jumped off his throne and strolled up to the knight, leaving barely any room between them. The size difference was more than noticeable, even with Meta Knight standing on the tips of his feet (Which barely earned him two extra inches of height.) The sapphire puffball tensed, unsure of whether the king was going to try attacking him, or if this was just to give him a power trip. Meta Knight knew as much information about Dedede as the king knew about him, and considering the ways the penguin could have taken the revelation that his throne had almost been challenged, things could go very badly indeed.

"You said you didn't like the people here, right?"

"N-No—" Meta Knight flinched, though no one could see it. "I—I meant that I wasn't fond of _most_ of the citizens. The Dees are my friends, but…unless I'm unfamiliar with other species, I'd say no. I'd probably prefer not to interact with any others."

"Does that include cappies, by any chance?"

"Huh. I don't particularly like them." The blue puffball tried to pick his words very carefully, just in case the king expected him to say that he liked them. "But if you know some fair, good-hearted cappies, I wouldn't mind meeting them. No offense to your Majesty."

Dedede hesitated. Then his face broke into a huge smirk. The king crouched down to offer his paw to the puffball, who was relieved to accept the treaty. "I'm not the biggest fan of them either. They're all jerks who think everyone sucks except them, just as a warning, uh…" The king frowned, releasing the puff's hand. "...what do you usually go by? I never asked before. You got a name beyond 'Meta Knight', or a title, or is that just it?"

"'Knight' _is_ my title, your Majesty. Unless…you have a different title for it?"

"Huh? Well, I don't have any knights myself, but I think most of the time they just have 'sir' and their name as their title. They don't say 'knight' after their name." The penguin shrugged. "Seriously, where do you come from?"

A Dee tried to step on the king's foot, hoping that he'd correct how blatantly he'd potentially offended the puffball. Unfortunately, the size difference came into play again, and Dedede barely felt it.

"Well…" The puff hesitated for what seemed like an eternity, leaving the room hanging in silence. "I…come from…here. I was told this was my home, but I was raised off-planet. Dream Land…is certainly different from what I'm used to. I would have preferred to head elsewhere, where I'd fit in better, but I came here to search for my family. Which is a monumental task when you only know your first name."

"Oh."

The king wished he could have said more, since they had common ground of losing their parents.

"That's...nice."

Instead, he made a social blunder. Oddly enough, the puff didn't seem to mind.

"Isn't it?" Meta Knight chuckled, and Dedede almost choked from how childish his laughter sounded compared to his voice. "I'll be examining records for decades. Suppose they'll be dead by then."

"You...You can look through my citizenship records. You're a good person. You won't do anything wrong."

The king extended his hand to the puffball.

"I trust you, Meta. You just want what's best for us...no matter how much of a weirdo you are about it."

* * *

C/N: It doesn't actually end there, nor does it end like that. _That's why it's a preview... c:_ (It'll be posted later on next week as a oneshot, once I get a title. Look forward to it.)

So.

 **Do any of you guys like requests?**

Here's the deal:

Cos is a busy penguin who doesn't have time to take requests from everyone.  
Cos feels bad that she can't give her friends and viewers requests since they leave reviews and feedback and stuff.  
Cos missed her fifth anniversary, hitting 60 favs (actually someone killed that by deleting their account so could someone fav me again so it's not 59? -.-), and who knows what other occasions and did nothing to celebrate them.  
 _Cos decided to have a raffle-contest with requests as prizes._

There will be three winners, and your prize is a oneshot request of your choice in topic. Preferably in Kirby, but if you ask for a fandom I know about, I won't turn you down. First place gets 2000 words, second gets 1500, third gets 1000. Now, here's the fun part.

 **Leave a review on this chapter telling me you want to enter (or PM me; whatever floats your boat). You get a point toward the raffle.** HOW-E-VER if you want bonus points, Cos has decided to be very generous compared to how most people hold raffles. Instead of making you work your butt off and write a 900-word-minimum oneshot about a topic of my choosing or drawing a picture or favoriting my stuff, I will give you a point for leaving a three-sentence review. If you leave six sentences I'll give you two points, but anything over that is simply to bring a smile to Cos's face, so that everyone has a chance even if they aren't good at reviewing (don't you still want to make Cos smile, though? :D)

 **If you start reviewing without telling me you want to enter, Cos will be _very confused._ D:**

…

 **To set the rules/clarify questions:**

-Sentences need to be at least five words long. This is not preschool, nor is it text Latin.

-If you've left a review on a chapter/oneshot already (or want to fix a previous review), Cos only counts the longest one and ignores the rest.

-Every chapter of a multi-chaptered work counts as a separate review. So reviewing every chapter of, say, Family Reunion could net you 20-30 points if you're efficient.

-Off-topic sentences do not count. Discussing/analyzing anything relevant to the story _does_ count. It is all you do in college English. Practice up, middle/high-schoolers.

-You do NOT get points if you review other people's stories besides mine. I can't track that and it's not fair to everyone else if you go off and leave like 300 reviews in other fandoms.

-HOWEVER, any work I've published counts for you to review, if you're motivated enough to click on my profile page! All of the above works apply, so if you've left a review in the past that you weren't satisfied with point-wise, just leave a new one! You are allowed to reuse as much of your previous review as you want, but just remember that I am only counting the longest review you leave. **_Past reviews count toward your total (so you don't have to re-review everything), but all the above rules are still in effect for those reviews, so if your review isn't six sentences, it's still getting the single point!_**

 **PROTIP** : I've left you plenty of hints in these rules! I may update my profile to include some quick-links to stories with certain characters/topics/genres, so if you'd like that when selecting stories to review, drop me a hint. Or I'll probably do it anyway. Probably.

…

If you're stumped for things to say in your review, here's a convenient example. Notice that the top part is more on the critique side (yes, even if it's not criticizing anything), and the italics are more on the discussion side.

"Oh wow, I didn't expect to see Coo show up to help Kirby! The animal friends don't appear in many fanfics, so it's nice to see you giving them some personality. I especially enjoyed it when he was talking with Kirby about how everyone's grown up since they've met.

 _It's cool to see Dedede and Meta Knight collaborating on the go-kart, too. Now that I think about it, they have a lot in common. They're both stubborn, like being in charge, but really want what's right at the end of the day. Too bad Meta's still upset about the air conditioning._ "

Seven sentences, so it surpasses the limit easily. And you didn't even have to talk about the characters—you could've talked about symbolism, predicted some future plot twists, asked questions about the work, brought up some tropes/plot elements/characterizations, etc. Write that down for your college English classes.

…

 **Earliest deadline is the end of August.** I have a killer semester coming up on me in the fall, so I want to get those requests out before I'm crushed. _I may give bonuses a la Mario Party bonus stars, which will be worth 5-10 extra points toward your total...but that's provided I can think of any. We'll see._ And emember that this all comes down to a drawing, so participate as much or as little as you desire.

 **You can participate regardless of whether you have an account or are an anonymous reviewer—JUST MAKE SURE YOU PUT YOUR NAME TO IT SO I KNOW IT'S YOU! Good luck!**

(…and ironically enough, I myself still owe people reviews, so I'll see you around, doing the same thing you are! I'll be posting at least a few new things in case you _are_ too lazy to go to my profile and review my old stories...)


	6. Author's Note before the next chapter

OKAY. I need to be real. I am missing so many review replies and PMs it's not even funny, but I'll get to them some unknown time in the future. So here's what's hopefully a concise (probably not short UGH) explanation of what happened the last five months.

…five months; wow, I get worse every year.

Actually, no. Let me just start with one of a few reasons why I haven't been as focused on Kirby as I usually am, and transition from there.

So, to start, I recently checked my favorites out of curiosity to see how many fics I've read that I actually liked enough to favorite this year, and I was pretty shocked. I've only favorited about 20 Kirby fanfics this ENTIRE year, and a lot of them were anime fics, which aren't really my _preference_ of fic, but I'll read anyway if it's good/original. There were maybe…five game fics in that lot, three of which were by the same person (TechnoDee; go check her out). So reason one; I can't find as much inspiration material, but that's not as much of a main problem as the next one…though it does hurt when I have spare time after my mind is void of anything to be inspired be.

So, university. I know you guys are just as busy as—

NO, I'm going to be blunt and honest. Screw that; you guys are busy, but I literally _live_ academics when I'm in university, and nobody can help me. I'm the only person in my entire family lineage to go to college, and I have so much to do that people with similar workloads to mine fall apart or are on drugs for stress/anxiety/depression/etc., and honestly, I never thought I'd say this, but there have been nights where I broke down and I put in writing that I did not think I could live another day if I did not get a drug for that sort of thing. My classmates (all guys at this point, by the way) are literally scared to go to class and some of them cry while doing the homework and tests. But here I am, still painfully busy, without meds, doing more work than they are and feeling guilty because I can't focus on Kirby like I used to.

Honestly, I want to. I really loved fantasies and I know in the back of my mind that I still should. But I've been focusing on Splatoon lately because it feels _realer_ and more fitting of my personality now, and I actually feel valued by the people I play with where in Kirby…Well, nobody's ever told me they _dislike_ me, but…sometimes I'm not sure whether the majority of my audience—if I still _have_ an audience left—cares or _wants_ me here. I know that pretty much everybody in this archive, or at least the fanfic side, knows of my existence if they aren't dead. I see it in the far reaches of people's chats that I stumble upon because I stalk people too much. But they never leave any feedback/favs/anything on my stories despite telling others that they read them and thought they were original.

This leads me to the question I've pondered over since I first thought about joining the Kirby archive: Is being original bad here?

Of course you guys are going to say, "What? Cos, of course not; I love seeing variation in fics!" Well so do I, and I'm not seeing any. I do see different types of fics pop up in the archive, mostly in recent years, but the vast majority (probably what, 97%?) of fics are rehashes of things that have already been done at least thirty times, with headcanons that have been used by at least a hundred other people. I know these things. I've been here too long. I've read fics _way_ back from the 2003 and 2009 eras and I've spectated from 2013 to the present. Nothing has changed, at all. The vast majority of fics here, with VERY few exceptions, are anime/post-anime fics that occasionally incorporate the game when they feel like it, all use a set handful of very specific headcanons, usually focus exclusively on Kirby/Meta Knight or both, and…honestly, that sums it up. I can't truthfully say I see much variation from that formula.

I'm well-known because I'm original. But I don't know whether to say I'm popular or infamous because of it, because when people who don't associate with me say they know me because I'm original, my only conclusion as to why they don't like me is _because_ I am original, especially since their work is usually not very original. And I can't think of a time someone has said my actual writing sucked, even as a joke; I've actually gotten nothing but praise on it…So what makes those people so avoidant of me? I'm not trying to accuse anyone; I'm just curious as to what I'm doing wrong. I average 300 visitors per oneshot in the first few days of it being released, but rarely do I ever get 10 different people to leave feedback on my oneshots in that same timespan. I know some people are just shy, but that means less than 3% of people who read my stuff actually care enough about it _to even fav it_.

This has bugged me a while. Please tell me guys…What's the deal? Why do I get just as many favs from people who _aren't even active_ in the Kirby archive anymore as I do from people who do actively look for/read Kirby fics? If I'm not making you guys happy with my work, please tell me, and I'll either change something up, or just save my time for something else, like actually playing with the video games I work hard for.

Maybe I'm overreacting; maybe I'm stressed from having to literally be perfect in my classes to even pass (and sadly, that's the absolute truth in engineering school), but this isn't recent and has been bugging me since before I even joined the archive. Tell me. I need to know. I can't go any longer or write anything in this archive if I don't get some answers/perspectives on that.

 _(Don't worry; if you don't care about me and are just here for the stories, I do have material I'm posting after I let this blow over. The contest is still on; I'm just trying to save some of my work so that when I die next semester, I might still be able to post once a month. I still do have a scrap I wanted feedback on though, so look forward to that.)_


	7. 3 Fic Previews and FFN Conquest Promo

**TRIPLE PREVIEW to make up for my year-long absence! Pagebreaks signify separate projects!**

 **Also, long author's note at the bottom to wrap up 1) the last chapter, 2) a bit about why I died, 3) the contest, and 4) a new collaborative project I'm advertising so if you really read anything, read that part, but that hopefully hits everything I haven't addressed in my past year of absence. If not, let me know.**

* * *

 **Unnamed Project #1: Codename 'Kirby's Adventure fic'**

 _Ha. Yellow. What a loser._ Meta Knight smirked, relaxing a bit against the tree. _Even if he was any other color, it would still be a_ _ **color**_ _. The silver stars shine the brightest, and that's exactly the type of star in my soul. I'd bet you have just as little clue on what to do here as I do, if not less._

 _…_ _wait, correction. I have a clue what I'm doing. You're plowing through, fighting whoever's in your way to assemble an ancient relic for illogical reasons. Did the king bother telling anyone why he shattered that relic? That could pose problems to his reign, and to his health, if he doesn't explain the situation to Kirby._

Maybe he should have reminded the king to make some sort of announcement about the Star Rod. After all, the general public seemed to be affected by the lack of magical force field in the area, or perhaps even the general planet. As a star child, Meta Knight had the good fortune of being accustomed to life with and without magic, and also having a magical relic himself, so he was generally unaffected by any minor disturbances in such things. However, a significant amount of Popstar's residents must have been used to the high levels of magic the Star Rod and the Fountain of Dreams produced for the planet. If they'd grown too reliant on it, Dedede's popularity with his citizens was probably at a severe low right now.

 _What did those creatures say happened to them? That they couldn't_ _ **dream?**_ The knight rolled his eyes. _These people have so little to think about that they notice when they don't have dreams? Why do they need to dream anyway; is the magic so strong here that it's almost like a false reality?_

That could be _dangerous_. Yes, that could be so dangerous it was impractical. If people enjoyed dreaming, they would spend most of their time asleep—unless they already considered their waking lives to be just as fulfilling as a fantasy.

 _But that's impossible. This planet has the potential to make anyone's life that fulfilling, but judging from the few advanced and intellectual creatures here, only a small percentage of the denizens are actually making use of everything this planet has to offer. That, or they lack so much ambition that they do believe their lives are worth living as they are now, perfect fantasy-dreams or not._

Whichever case it was, something was seriously wrong on this planet. But that wasn't his choice to question—as a star child, at least. As a star child, his duty was to defeat any evil creatures, whether they be Ancients, or…

 _…_ _or an evil mentality in general…_

No. He couldn't think about that right now. Right now, the king of this land had entrusted him to protect the Star Rod…

But little did that king know, his plan was to defeat the Nightmare himself, using the fragments of this Star Rod or Galaxia. All he needed for this plan to work was to defeat Kirby, claim the fragments as his right as the stronger star child, and he would be completely prepared to defeat this evil and establish his first shining moment as a star child.

He couldn't lose to Kirby. He'd trained and prepared himself for this moment; he'd avoided using copy abilities just for the sake of strengthening himself—or to give himself an advantage in duels where little or no magic was allowed in battle. He was smart, he was agile, and he had the right equipment for almost any job he needed, with the ability to teleport to boot. President Haltmann had invested his time, money, and resources in him, and Meta Knight had no intentions of disgracing the name of his caretaker. He would win this match, find a way to defeat Nightmare, and make people respect him and the man who'd shaped his childhood.

Winning against his classmates proved he was skilled in practice. Winning against a fellow star child in a completely open environment proved he was skilled, period. And while Kirby seemed a few tiers below him as far as power went, there was nothing Meta Knight wanted more than to start his journey as a star child with a _win_ , regardless of how powerful his opponent was.

 _It's not an unfair fight if they're weaker than you. They're still a star child. They're still destined to save the universe. Of course he's a worthy opponent._

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 **Project #2: Codename 'Comforting Them'**

"You don't _understand;_ I could have saved him! There's so much about me that you don't know. So many— _mistakes_ I've made that you don't know! Mistakes that destroyed my entire life before Popstar!" Meta Knight clenched his paws, pulling his cape so tightly around himself that Dedede thought it might rip apart. "It's—I—I am—"

The penguin laid a gloved hand on the blue puffball's shoulder, hoping to calm him down some. It worked, though not instantly. The puff jumped at the contact, but eventually let his muscles relax, the warmth spreading down his back as he released the cape, paws falling to his sides.

"Meta, you're right, I _don't_ know everything about you. There's no way I could, and I don't have to if you don't want me to. But I still know a _lot_ about you, and from all I've seen, I know you are a good person. I haven't seen anything that would ever make me doubt that you had good intent in mind. You're like…I dunno. I just know a lot about you; not everything, but—"

"But you still don't know everything about me, your Majesty."

Dedede blinked, going quiet at the interruption. Meta Knight never interrupted anyone, especially authority. He desperately tried to think of something to say, but the puff shivered beneath him, a small smile crossing his face…but it seemed almost eerie.

"True, you've always see me as perfect, and chivalrous, and skilled, and I'm honored you believe that, but…I am a horrible person. There's just never been a chance where I've had the chance to show that I'm sadistic. That I don't care. That I would hunt down the people who crossed me and make them _wish_ , make them _regret_ how badly they messed up. I have ruined people on purpose, your Majesty. And it seems today, I can destroy them without even wanting to."

There was silence for a bit.

"Some star child I am." The puff choked on those words, tears starting to well in his eyes again. "All this power I have, that I'm supposed to use for good, to help others…I just used it to kill them instead. That doesn't make me a star child, or a hero of justice."

Meta Knight shrugged Dedede's hand off his back, flapping his wings a few times as he crossed his arms, turning away from the king.

"That just makes me a monster."

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 **Unnamed Project #3: Codename 'Breakfast'**

Ahhhh, a cup of coffee. Any kind of coffee; he had his favorites, but he needed _some_ sort of motivation to get out of bed in the morning, and an instant wake-up call like that was the only thing that could cut it. Especially since it was Monday, easily the worst or most boring days of the week for the king, depending on the state of the kingdom.

Most of the Dees had already finished their cleaning, barely noticed by the king as he dragged himself to the throne room. At this point it was easily past ten in the morning, but seeing that he'd spent most of the previous night up watching weekend movie specials for his favorite series, that wasn't much of a surprise. The last few extraterrestrial invasions had made him fall behind on the episodes, and—

 ** _SQUEAK_**

"Great King!"

Dedede started, clenching his fists as he glanced around for trouble. Instead he saw a fallen Dee in the doorway to the throne room ahead of him. The Dee quickly pushed himself up.

"Great King, I was just looking for you! What would you like us to fix you for breakfast? Would you like to eat it here, or elsewhere?"

"Mmmmm…" The king thought for a moment. "I'll come to the kitchen. I need some super-extra-quadruple espresso today and then I want to get an omelette and a fruit bowl."

"Okay! Follow me!" the Dee said cheerfully, handing the king a menu before starting off toward the kitchen. "I'm sure you already know everything we got but just in case you wanted to look!"

Out of politeness for the overly-kind Dee, Dedede opened the menu and flipped through to stare at the omelette fillings.

-A few moments later…-

Being Meta Knight, the puff _usually_ managed to look completely awake. However, with the tech world's deadlines being set on Mondays at 6 AM, that could not be said for this morning.

"Morning, Meta," the king yawned, pulling up a chair next to the puff. "Pulled an all-nighter, huh?"

Meta Knight stared blankly at his tablet, skimming through what looked to be a hopelessly-long list of specifics for a job. "Yes."

"Sooo, how'd it go?"

The blue puffball blinked, seriously thinking about the answer. After staring into space for about half a minute, he shook his head and went back to the tablet. "Honestly, I have no idea how it went at this point. I barely remember what I was even doing."

The king spied an apple on the table next to the sleepy puffball, and an evil thought entered his mind.

Should he do it? Should he be annoying on this boring Monday morning?

 _Do it._

 _Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it—_

 _You'll regret it!_

 ** _Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it Do it._**

Without further hesitation, Dedede decided to do it, and he did not regret it. For the most part.

* * *

 **ANNOUNCEMENT: YEARLY PIA (Penguin Intelligence Agency) REPORT (that should be on my profile but I know is not checked often so here you go)**

So there are a lot of announcements I could make that you might have heard if you follow my DA account, or for you peeps who are on servers with me on Discord. A lot has happened since I last consistently updated, or updated at all aside from these last two fics, which has been…about a year, geez. First off, I would like to apologize for my absence. For those of you who are new or unfamiliar with me, I am a junior in college studying rocket science/computer programming, but my summers have also been consumed by outside activities, jobs, and as you might have seen from the last chapter…lack of motivation _. I wanted to thank you all again for the kind words you left on that chapter, or messaged me privately, as well as my friends on Discord that I've thanked time and again. If you guys hadn't wanted me to stay, I would've left. So thank you, so much._

Moving forward to the future: That contest I mentioned…over a year ago, ouch, is probably best left alone. I had maybe one or two consistent people review, and since I was offering three prizes that would probably take at least a few hours to type up, combined with the fact that I got crushed with coursework, breaking my leg, life, job, etc., I think I'm better off waiting on something like that until I know for absolute certain I could manage something like that, or actually collaborating with others so it wasn't as much of a load on my shoulders alone.

 **SPEAKING OF COLLABORATING WITH OTHERS, THOUGH, ALLOW ME TO GIVE YOU THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THIS NOTE:**

Since I have vanished I have met up with a few people I'd seen on both here and DeviantArt, and after sharing some of my despairs I mentioned in that previous chapter/note last year, we've been scheming on Discord to collaboratively try and publish and support/review more fics (and hold each other accountable XD) this summer! We've made a community to contain all the fics we're publishing for the effort, entitled simply, 'Kirby Conquest Community!' To access it, simply go to the Kirby archive main page and look in the top right for the 'Communities' button. It should be at the top by default (since there are sadly very few Kirby communities), but if not it has the same image as this fic's new cover, courtesy of CelestiaKnight. All stories we've written for the endeavor will be in there, and you can follow it to get alerts regardless of whether you've followed any of us, so super convenient!

If you'd like to cut directly to the chase and will read anything thrown at you, just follow the community, but if you wanna know a bit more about each of us, I wanted to talk a bit about the other peeps involved and their plans for the project in one convenient place! I'm not sure how clearly I'm explaining at this point so if you have any questions, check out the community or leave it in a review so I can address it next time. Without further ado though…

 **A TASTE OF THE PEOPLE INVOLVED IN THE COLLAB (whom you might already know, I hope!):**

 **Azuranaito (previously CallieSizemore601)** : Azura's into all kinds of stuff! If memory serves she has her own mix of the anime and games separate from either continuity, but she also does work specific for each 'verse, and I believe even some gijinka stuff too. She writes both multichaptered fics and oneshots, as well as multiple genres, but lately she's been trying to explore some darker territory in writing and exploring some psychological stuff as well…all with some good old fluff tied in to complete the package. Good stuff.

 **CelestiaKnight (previously CelestiaDragonKnight):** If you've been around the archive a while and are familiar with my oneshots, you probably know Celestia's too! Celestia's main work right now is on her interpretation of the Kirbyverse before and after the anime, under the names Falling Stars/Fallen Stars (depending on their placement in the timeline…Oooo, suspicious.) Her 'verse is very fleshed out and contains plenty of fluff, adventure, and Angst (TM), so lots of variety! Current reports say she is currently working on a rewrite of Fallen Stars: A New Age, but penguin authorities believe she may have other projects for the series to come as well…

 **The Cosmic Procrastinator** : The penguin you've all forgotten because she's been busy with school and heading the PIA. I am certain that you have heard illustrious rumors about my taste for character dev and fics about the RtDL quartet, but lately I have also gotten a taste for Angst (TM) and exploring heavier psychology topics. I write almost exclusively gameverse as of now, so I have a few plans to rewrite some older fics and tie them in with new ones…as well as bring back Family Reunion, and hopefully—finally—complete it this year. After I complete the 25+ oneshots on the list I swore I'd complete to the other Conquest members.

 **CelticQuailKnight** : My past self; she appears to be almost identical to me, except with some more planning for her backstories and HCs (especially her puffball stuff which I am super jealous of the planning.) All the Angst (TM) and thought process stuff you'd expect from Cos, with some fluff and surprises! Despite her being me I have no clue which 'verse she's going to write in next, nor what kind of oneshot…though I do know she has a certain Planet Robobot-centric fic that's pretty dark and full of good Angst (TM)…She's a good person to go to for fics involving Meta Knight in general, or his crew like Sailor Dee or the Meta-Knights…which happen to be one of very few bribes the PIA will accept.

 **Jewelsio** : A super-nice person whose fics are so sweet and fluffy you want to melt, as well as yet another person I've stalked since she entered the archive (er, observed for PIA data collection.) I am being completely serious when I say that Jewel's stuff is heartwarming…Might be dangerous to cosmic penguins actually; they tend to melt into goop puddles when they get too happy, which is exactly what Jewels is good at doing in fics, and just talking to her. Penguin authorities are currently investigating her fluff and hurt/comfort fics, especially with Kirby and Meta (in either anime or gameverse).

 **Metanaito-kyou** : Uh oh, another super-nice person…the PIA might have to start issuing allergy medicine for the niceness overload. Seriously speaking, however, Mety is also great at fluff fics and hurt/comfort stuff, with a variety of characters and fic types! I actually persuaded Mety to join much more recently than the others, so I'm not sure what kind of plans are behind the scenes here…this may require further research on behalf of the PIA…With fitting allergy medicines, of course.

I have also received reports from penguin agents that a certain PinkPony4 is planning to rewrite a fic codenamed 'Destroyed.' Sounds important…Mmmmm, this might require further investigation…

…

…still here? If so and you want more, I'll post another preview later on, and maybe update my profile with more info. I'm not a fan of super-long author's notes though, so I'll save the rest for later! Please check out the community and the peeps I've mentioned here, if you haven't already, and I'll hopefully see you in a completed fic instead of a scrap before coming back here!


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